Ashes in the Snow - Mono

Swiftly as a draft of wind, moving past her without a trace

Time, cold and unbending, leaves her standing alone once again

Long ago, there was the sound of two children running here.

Their footsteps,

never straying far apart from each other’s, still echo through the woods where

an old woman walks on his day

On a still river surrounded by weeping willows, the woman rows her boat towards

the open sea

With a grave face she pulls the oars to and fro, her eyes fixed upon a nearby

cliff above the waters.

She traces the edge and holds her breath,

reliving the chilling distance down to the bottom.

Her rhythm is steady and

slow as she breaks through the familiar fog.

The sound of waves crashing,

the lingering smell of burnt wood, and the reflection of branches on the water

all remain the same as her memory, as if frozen in a spell.

She inhales all she

can hold and wonders if winter never ended since that cold night she stood on

the cliff with him.

Here lies their landscape of memories untouched by the

awakening spring

On this day the woman prepares for farewell.

Heavy are his ashes,

sinking in her hand.

As she strains to let his remains go, she turns herself

to the earth for an answer, a reminder of why she is here

Beneath her grief she knows there is something beyond the finality of this

moment.

Like the spring that is born from a cruel winter, there is something

here waiting to be born.

Resting her hand on the boat, she lets her eyes sleep

Peering from the thickets of the surrounding woods, a promise tree faithfully

waits to welcome this day of their journey.

With roots woven deeply into the

earth, it is the only thing that’s flourished here where all else has stood

still.

In the midst of it all, it continues to grow, nurturing the vow that it

was planted with as if it were its child.

The tree watches the woman tenderly

and sways its branches, sending a stream of wind to relieve her

In the place between wake and sleep, there lies a bridge over the waters.

The woman finds herself on one end, walking towards the figure standing in the

middle.

With her arms open, she feels lifted as if she was a child again

Hours pass before she awakes in the boat by the embrace of dim sunlight.

Finding the ashes still waiting in her palm, she blesses them with her love

and releases them into a stream of wind that carries them over the waters.

The woman travels back into a time where they prayed here together,

a dreadful time where they found solace in each other’s promise

Her eyes follow the flight of the ashes until they fade into falling snow

before her-the same snow of the winter that they loved and perished here

together